Lee Bollinger, president of Columbia University, thinks that subsidizing journalism would be a great idea. Bollinger anticipates that the public’s chief concern with his plan will be that a press that gets its paychecks from the government cannot effectively perform its function as democracy’s watchdog. That is not my concern. My concern is that journalists on the public payroll will become even more fervently dedicated to the idea of higher taxes and more spending. If you thought the press had a big-government bias before, wait until it is officially run by quasi-government employees.

Bollinger’s example of how a government-funded enterprise can carry on without its ties to the government compromising its mission is academia. I’d say that illustrates my concern perfectly. I do not think it is any coincidence that the academy has drifted further leftward as its reliance on public funding has grown.

Bollinger’s conception of “watchdog” is too narrow: I am sure the press would continue to try to expose corruption on the part of public officials, as it does now. But I am also sure that many journalists would, consciously or subconsciously, fall victim to the already common tendency to look a little more carefully for corruption on the part of those public officials who oppose missions for the government that fall beyond the protection of basic liberties and the defense of the nation’s strategic interests — missions such as, say, subsidizing newspaper writers and TV reporters.

Bollinger’s proposal would put the government in a position to define “journalism,” which would stifle innovation in the way news gets broken and create all sorts of unintended consequences, such as the re-centralization and concentration of media power in the hands of a few institutions. Finally, we cannot afford the government we have, much less a government with a new and costly media adjunct.

Just a note on Bollinger’s “free speech” credentials: AEI’s Nick Schulz reminds us of Bollinger’s role in bringing Ahmadinejad to Columbia, which Bollinger defended vigorously on First Amendment grounds. The editors noted at the time:

Nor has Bollinger traditionally demonstrated a commitment to freedom of speech that might allow us to take him at his word. As dean of the University of Michigan Law School, he had a golden opportunity to take a stand for free speech when that school enacted one of the nation’s most draconian speech codes (later struck down as unconstitutional). According to people involved in the fight, Bollinger remained on the sidelines, coming out against the speech code only after the battle had already been won.

Standing by as Michigan tried to restrict the speech of its own students, then inviting the leader of a hostile foreign nation (and a Holocaust denier) to Columbia to speak. This is the conception of free speech that Bollinger brings with him to the table when he writes that we shouldn’t be concerned about making the press a ward of the state.